Saturday 23 August 2008

Next Space Shuttle Crew STS-125

STS-125

The next scheduled space shuttle mission is STS-125, and it will be the final flight to the Hubble Space Telescope.







This STS-125 crew patch shows HST along with a representation of its many scientific discoveries. The overall structure and composition of the Universe is shown in blue and filled with planets, stars, and galaxies. The black background is indicative of the mysteries of dark-energy and dark-matter. The new instruments to be installed on HST during this mission, Wide Field Camera-3 and the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph, will make observations to help understand these unseen components which seem to dominate the structure of the Universe.



The red border of the patch represents the red-shifted glow of the early Universe, and the limit of the Hubble's view into the cosmos. Upon completion of STS-125, the fifth mission to service HST, the Hubble will provide even deeper and more detailed views of the Universe. Soaring by the telescope is the space shuttle which initially deployed Hubble and has enabled astronauts to continually upgrade the telescope, significantly contributing to the expansion of human knowledge.


The crew consists of Michael J. Massimino, Michael T. Good, both mission specialists; Gregory C. Johnson, pilot; Scott D. Altman, commander; K. Megan McArthur, John M. Grunsfeld and Andrew J. Feustel, all mission specialists.

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